


Asahi

by TheYellowHouse



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21851872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheYellowHouse/pseuds/TheYellowHouse
Summary: 中日极东合志《月忆·忆君月》所收录短篇英译，原作者余烬。* 极东无差* 现代paro，前辈与后辈的办公室恋爱
Relationships: China/Japan (Hetalia)
Kudos: 4





	Asahi

It was 5:30 pm when he woke up from a dream. Kiku Honda sat up and pulled back the curtains. In the end of winter, the  color of  sky was dark and muddy like cement, which was spread out by a shovel, faint light glinting from behind the cement layer. The hand holding the curtain paused for a second, then lowered.

He fumbled for his phone from beside the pillow, yawning and slowly blinking his eyes open as the screen lit up.  He had no idea what the other was doing, but if he send a message now, he would be unlikely to get a response.

Plus, in fact, it was not his habit to send a greeting after waking up.

Had he not worked overtime last night, he would not have napped till now. Kiku threw back the covers and got out of bed, the air conditioner that he pressed by mistake to the wind-sweep mode before he went to bed blowing warm breaths over his face. In addition to the remote controller of the air conditioner, another item he mistakenly pressed last night may be the mute button on his phone. The phone was facedown on the pillow, letting him ignore a new message from the other person.

A red cardboard box was left on the sofa. Kiku bent over as he buttoned up, and then picked up the box in confusion.

It was a Marlboro. Shake it around. There's not much left.

Kiku did not touch cigarettes. Yao accidentally left this box of cigarettes. He opened the cigarette case and found that there were only six left in it. He then tossed it under the glass tea table, waiting to return it to the other man next time when  he was free to drop in. Marlboros have always appeared in pulp fictions as a standard brand for smokers. Decadence, digestion, stagnation, such are its symbolic elements synonymous with the scene with cans and cans of Asahi Beer in Japanese movies.

Yao Wang was his senior colleague, playing the role of boss. Their first conversation happened on the terrace of their company after working overtime. Yao lighted a cigarette, the hair on his temples along with smoke was blown along the same direction by the wind. Kiku Honda, however, had never expected to be chatted up, even though he was having a crush on him. Yao was a high profile figure in his social circle, and to him he was probably just a new employee.

"A hard night, isn't it? Wanna relax a bit?"-- Yao asked, smiling, as he leaned back against the railing and turned his head -- then he put fingers to his lips.  Kku's face was smaked by the smell of cigarettes. It was Yao's eyes piercing into him through the smoke of a cigarette that replaced the empty ceiling that night at Kiku's bedtime. Greed is written in human nature.  You get a little, and then you will want more, until you finally have it all. A child who tastes one bite of a biscuit and finds it delicious will be sure to eat the whole piece.

The light outside the curtains was fading. After getting rid of his dinner with quick-frozen food, he felt that his head was enduring a dull pain due to the previous late night. Before closing his eyes, he pressed on his phone. The new message he received an hour ago jumped into the screen:

_ Is this a bad time? _

Kiku called back.

"Hello?" 

"Were you sleeping? You didn’t text me back." 

The voice sounded half a laugh, half a complaint.

"Sorry," Kiku adjusted his breathing, "my phone's on silent."

"Good for you." Still a smiling complaint.

"What's up? Texting so suddenly."

"Nothing particular, just to check if you’re free."

"I am."

"I’m not, I'm afraid. At least not for a while. I'm having dinner."

A voice from a stranger came faintly into the phone. "A  dinner party ?"  Kiku asked.

"No, just a casual dinner." The other man answered lightheartedly , "It's Iwasaki of the Personnel Department."

Kiku remembered Iwasaki. The first time they met, all three of them were there , and with only a glimpse of the look in Iwasaki's eyes he knew they were thinking about the same thing. He, as well as Iwasaki's kind, were too many. Sometimes he felt that Yao was like a elk in winter, never worrying about being hunted, leaving clear, crescent shaped tracks in the snow that led the hunters to follow. He was the hunter who have managed to catch up, but he was still worrying about his prey.

However, that's what  they are. Even the initial chat-up  lines followed that pattern. 

"Kiku?" The other man asked,"Is something wrong? You're not talking."

"Ah, nothing."

"Hm. Well then. I gotta go, okay?"

"Wait," Kiku said, almost subconsciously. As soon as the words were out, he paused again, and then he asked: "What else is  on tonight? "

"Nope," The voice on the other side sounded a bit too careless, "not until after dinner. I'll go to your place."

Kiku put down the phone, fumbled for the cigarette box under the tea table, and tried to light one in it.

It was not hard to smoke. The other man once taught him. Like this, put one in your mouth, light it with a lighter, take the first breath, then the second. Inhale, exhale, inhale the nicotine, and exhale the pale white smoke. When he was a child, he always felt that one faint flame would burn along the dry tobacco, burning into the smoker's lungs. It seemed so, as when the  smoker inhaled too sharply, the spark on the cigarette butt would always fiercely lighted up. He often watched silently as Yao sat smoking on the edge of their bed, the red warning light flickering on and off.

He didn't like the smell of cigarettes, which was difficult to remove. He had tried to dissuade the other man, but he would always have to pour a shallow layer of water into the ashtray on his tea table.

"Other occasions are out of my reach, but please at least restrain yourself before you see me. Quit smoking." He said to Yao two months before.

"Is that so?" The other man pretended to think for a second and spread his hands. "Do I smell like cigarettes?"

He leaned over to verify it. The moment the tip of his nose touched the cloth, he was held in arms. A little trap.

Resignedly, he got accustomed to the smell of cigarettes. In the lithe color of the rising sun, Kiku fell in sleep smelling smoke several times.

Two hours and fifteen minutes later, the call came in.

"I'm downstairs. Where should I park?"

Kiku put on his coat and took the elevator downstairs. He got in the passenger seat and let Yao drive into the apartment's underground parking lot. Before they passed through the gate, he handed the key card to the security guard from beyond Yao's shoulder. The guard bent over in confusion and peered through the window.

It was neither good nor evil, but a curiosity out of the nature of desire.

"The parking space of residents in this apartment is fixed," Kiku said as the two of them were going upstairs after the car was parked, "my car happened to be lent to a colleague, so the parking space is free. Next time, please tell me in advance if you decide to drive here. "

"Sorry, sorry," the apology sounded all too  easy ,  "so where should I park next time?"

"I don't know." Kiku admitted.

"I'll just take a cab, then." Yao said, "or maybe you can come pick me up. Will you?"

He did not say a word, just took the key out of his pocket and opened the door. The warm air, heated by the air conditioner, came over like a bulb you touched through a lampshade before going to sleep at night. Yao took off his coat, stepped on the carpet, and went fraught into the room.

"Do you have any tea?"

"Yes." Kiku hung his coat on the hat rack. "What sort of tea would you like?"

"Black tea, if you please."

Kiku handed the tea to Yao as the latter was curling up contentedly on the sofa, dozing off. "After a little liquor," Yao took the cup, "a cup of tea is always welcomed. Thank you." 

"You drove up here after drinking?" Kiku asked, stolidly. 

"Just one shot," Yao answered with a gesture, "wouldn't do no harm."

But it was not about the drunken driving. Kiku sat down opposite him. The man before him thought for a while, then opened his mouth and said: "Come over if you don't believe it. No alcoholic smell at all."

After two seconds of hesitation, he moved in. The faint smell of alcohol and cigarette mingled, making Kiku frown.

"I'm afraid you’ve had more than one shot."

"I'm not lying." 

The black tea was soon seen bottom.

Every time such thing happened, Kiku responded in the same way: with almost no sound, sitting a little farther away and watched the other man. It was impossible for Yao to be so perceptive as to be unaware of this. Kiku knew that too. But each time, Yao came across as almost naive.

Is he just too lazy to care about, or is he simply in the mood of teasing? Kiku wouldn't have known. Yao put down his cup and took out a lighter, opening and closing it. This little gesture was a sign of only one thing: cigarette addiction.

As always, Kiku held up his hand, pushing the ashtray on his side toward the other side -- this time, though, he held it still.

"You did that on purpose." 

"What?"

The other man asked him, sounding confused.

"I say," Kiku stated, "having dinner with Iwasaki. Plus drinking."

"What's there to be troubled with?"

"Have you ever been troubled?" He asked in an undulating voice.

Long after the unsettling silence, a sigh startled Kiku.

"I know what you're talking about," Yao said, in a soft, elderly tone, "and maybe one day you'll understand."

Yao looked up at him. By the sofa, the edges of their coats fell from the coat rack and sagged to the floor, sweeping the light beams in the air. His black horsetail was drooping from his shoulder. Kiku looked straight into the other man's eyes, which were blurred by ambiguity.

"You'll understand", is that why he's acting so casually? Kiku knew that Yao was not someone who'd be content with staying where he was, and damn, he was drawn to that character. Casual dinners, casual drinks. Yao shared them with others all the time even after he set up this relationship with Kiku. This was the first time Kiku's ever questioned him that. The mere thought of Yao accepting another person's invitation just because he didn’t get a response was enough to free Kiku’s anger.  _What's past is past, but you've gone too far today,_ he wanted to say. The moment he was about to blurt it out, he pulled back a little.

Then he didn’t speak.

The other man was so close, yet so distant to him. Once he decided to be close, he would know no boundaries ; once he decided to run away, he would just disappear in the air, leaving Kiku panicked and at loss, pacing back and forth on the end of a string.

But maybe, maybe instead, the other person was just following his lead. Maybe it was all about satisfying his own competitive urges. Elks were not dogs, and they could not be tamed. Hunters did not take the harvest as an occupation as well; only following the elk's trails was their way.

He looked at Yao's face in the dark, and he couldn not stop himself from trying to turn the light a bit brighter, to expose that face to the light. He was quiet for a moment, reaching for the ends of the end of the other's hair. The other man leaned his upper body and sent the whole bunch of hair into his palm.

"Could you not pull?"

"Sorry."

In fact, something similar happened on the other end, and he didn't know about it.

For Yao, smoking was a habit he meant to kick. However, Kiku gave him a silver portable ashtray as a gift. It was an exquisite metal tin, like one for mints.

Therefore, he continued this habit of smoking, and when he was out, he would always flick the ashes in the ashtray in front of him.

By all means, it's just a kid's move. When it happened too many times, he saw helplessness and amusement in Kiku's eyes as well.

What was in the other man's mind, to advise him to never smoke again, meanwhile giving him a portable ashtray? It could be the mindset of a drug addict who knew what's forbidden but violated it every single time for he couldn't help with his addiction. However, on second thought, that saying might fit himself better. If puersuasion did not work, the only solution left was obedience. Maybe that was the other man’s real thought. Both of them were subservient to each other.

"Kiku, I've finished." It was as if he was speaking to himself.

A cigarette case was taken from below the tea table and thrown over  to him .


End file.
